Rocking SEO in the modern era a.k.a today

Rocking SEO in the modern era a.k.a today

SEO changes. Your website should, too

Sooner or later everyone involved in SEO has to face the inevitable fact: the concept of SEO is not that new anymore. The uncertainty that the Panda and Penguin Google update has brought SEO in the modern era, and left many SEO experts wondering what direction they need to take in order to improve their website performance…

What these changes mean for SEO experts is believe it or not, ranking is the most important thing in SEO anymore. Even though ranking well for a specific keyword used to have a lot of value by itself, there are some changes in people’s behavior that are pretty obvious. People close their browsers if they don’t find what they are looking for more easily today. Even when they do give your website a chance, you have very little time to impress them. Very often web sites that are ranked #2 or #3 get better click through rates than websites ranked #1, because users find them more interesting. What are the changes that SEO experienced these days? Should you abandon the old classic rules of SEO, to try to rank better in the new era? Let’s take a look at some of the classic principles of SEO and see how they compare with the modern age SEO recommendations.

Good old classic on-page SEO

There are some SEO principles that can be “carved in stone”. These are the classic SEO principles that include:

• Include keywords in page Title
• Higher keywords usage density
• Include keywords in page URL
• Include keywords in H1 and H2 tags
• Include keywords in alt attributes of images etc.

SEO in the modern era

As SEO is evolving it makes SEO experts work hadrer. They need to take their strategy to a whole new level. It is not just about relevant keywords anymore. I read a book a while ago, that explained the keywords in meta tags SEO concept very explicitly. It said “putting keywords on a website that doesn’t have good content is like putting lipstick on a pig – it will not make it more kissable”. This is probably the closest “definition: that explains the SEO principles shift that happens nowadays. Let’s check out a few tricks that go a long way when conceptualizing SEO strategies:

Start building your online brand

The name of your website is something your visitors take very, very seriously. If your visitors get familiar with your web site’s name the click-through rate will increase dramatically. So, if you are not doing it right now, you might want to consider developing a brand strategy for your webpage/product, but also for yourself as an author. (Read more about verifying authorship).

Providing relevant content

The objective of SEO experts today is anticipating what the clients search for. The website should deliver the content the client search for as a whole, rather than just trying to “trick” people by optimizing keywords, so they think they’ve found something they were searching for, when in fact, they haven’t.

Improve your search engine listings

This basically means do whatever is in your power to make the job easier for the search engines. Optimizing your sitemaps, as well as xml video sitemaps for your video content on your website is a must nowadays.

Improve webpages loading time

We have already talked about the short attention span of today’s powered user. They will not be on your page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. So, you need to do your job in your field as well. Find the best hosting provider for the platform you are using for your website. Also, find plugins for optimizing the content on your website. If you are using CMS’s like wordpress, jooma or drupal there are plugins that can do wonders for your website.

Embrace social media

Optimally, every webpage today has to be socially share able. This means great articles that can easily be shared on Facebook and Twitter, great images for Pinterest etc. SEO experts didn’t have that problem in the past. But nowadays it is all about social collaboration. Make sure you put sharing buttons on every page that has relevant content on your website.

As a conclusion I decided to quote Rand Fishkin at SeoMoz, as he probably said it best: It is not just about ranking anymore, it is about performing!